Gov. Chris Christie moved to replace two members of the state Pinelands Commission, including his own appointee, D'Arcy Rohan Green of Bay Head, months after she and six other commissioners voted to block a plan to build a controversial natural gas pipeline.

Christie's nominations Monday of Dennis Roohr, the Republican mayor of North Hanover in Burlington County, and Robert S. Barr, president of the Ocean City Community Association and a Democratic party activist, would replace Green, a Bay Head Borough Council member, and Robert Jackson, a former mayor of West Cape May.

If Roohr and Barr are approved by the state Senate Judiciary Committee that could swing the vote on the pipeline from a tie and make it possible for South Jersey Gas to get approval to build.

The pipeline plan, strongly backed by the Christie administration and state Board of Public Utilities, would supply gas to the now-obsolete BL England power station in upper Cape May County, which is shutting down under an agreement with the state to end its air pollution. Houston-based Rockland Capital bought the plant from Atlantic City Electric and would repower it as a modern gas-fired generator.

That plan runs up against a three decades-old Pinelands ban on new transmission pipelines through the forest zone, even though much of it would be built in existing highway rights of way. Pinelands commissioners debated it for months before deadlocking in a 7-7 vote Jan. 10.

Pipeline critics said they see the nominations as a move to purge the commission, as pipeline advocates mobilize bipartisan political support for exempting the project from longstanding Pinelands rules.

"Darcy Green was nominated by Christie. She's a longtime Republican activist. She votes not only on her conscience but the letter of the law," said Carelton Montgomery of the Pinelands Preservation alliance, a nonprofit group that monitors state and federal Pinelands policy for the nearly 1 million-acre region.

Montgomery said the potential ouster of Green and Jackson looks like an attempt to "pack the commission for the benefit of a single investment company" that owns the BL England power plant, which would connect to the pipeline.

Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for the governor, portrayed the charges as overblown.

"These are two objectively qualified individuals (Roohr and Barr) who are hardworking, independent and have deep roots and extensive records of service in their communities," Roberts said in an emailed response. "Suggesting otherwise is not only disrespectful to Mr. Barr and Mr Roohr, it is another sign that this is just more baseless nonsense from overwrought partisans who oppose any action by this administration, no matter how factually sound the policy is."

Political pressure on the 15-member Pinelands board has ratcheted up since winter, with Democratic leaders Senate president Steve Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, calling for reconsideration of a 22-mile pipeline route through a Pinelands forest zone.

The proposal is immensely popular with South Jersey labor and business groups. In a recent conference call with investors, executives of South Jersey Industries, parent of the gas company, said they were confident the pipeline plan would get another chance for Pinelands approval.

Last month, Cumberland County replaced its longtime representative on the commission, Leslie Ficcaglia, who like Jackson and Green voted against the pipeline. Cumberland County officials said the vote was not their reason for replacing her. But Ficcaglia said she had no clue she would be bumped from the unpaid commission job.

Green and Jackson are serving expired terms, so Christie could quickly replace them "if they can get it through the Judiciary Committee," Carlton Montgomery said.

In casting her vote that day, Green invoked Christie's frequent public declarations of the need to stick to principles in public life.

"I'm very comfortable with the decision," she said after the vote. "I feel like the Pinelands Commission was strengthened today."

Another pipeline critic, Bill Wolfe of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the move to get rid of Green shows the pressure on commissioners. In the run-up to the vote, Wolfe had questioned Green's ownership of energy stocks on her state financial disclosure form, after the Christie administration forced another commissioner, environmental law professor Edward Lloyd, aside over ethics allegations.

"And as soon as she steps out of line, he (Christie) yanks her," Wolfe said. "How can government do its job... if people who do their job with integrity, they can't serve?"